Details of UOC Metropolis's lawsuit against DESS published

Kyiv District Administrative Court. Photo: expres.in.ua

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has filed a lawsuit against the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS). The UOC requests that the DESS's order, which recognized the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC as affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church, be declared unlawful and annulled. This is stated in the text of the lawsuit published in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.

According to the document, the Kyiv Metropolis filed a claim with the Kyiv District Administrative Court demanding the annulment of Order No. N-127/11 of the State Service for Ethnopolitics dated August 27, 2025. By this order, the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC was recognized as "affiliated with a foreign religious organization whose activities are prohibited in Ukraine".

The interests of the UOC in court are represented by Archpriest Nikita Chekman.

The court reviewed the claim and decided to proceed under a simplified procedure – without summoning the parties. The representative of the UOC also requested that the court obtain the evidence on which DESS relied.

Furthermore, the court obliged DESS to provide:

- a copy of the memo from the Head of the Department for Religious Affairs dated May 16, 2025, No. 41, on the basis of which the order to check the affiliation of the Kyiv Metropolis with a foreign religious organization was issued;
- all materials that were considered or should have been considered when adopting the disputed order.

As reported by the UOJ, DESS is seeking to confiscate all the property of the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC.

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